Obi-Wan Trilogy - Chapter Two - The Dark Times
by Noggins
Summary: The second of a trilogy. On Tatooine Obi-Wan Kenobi meets someone that changes his perspective of life


Title: The Dark Times  
  
Author: Jonathan Evans  
  
Author email: noggins@ic24.net  
  
Summary: Ten years before Episode IV, Obi-Wan Kenobi meets  
someone that changes his perspective of the way he is to lead  
his life in the future.  
  
Disclaimer: George Lucas owns everything and I'm not making any  
money off of this nor do I intend to (I'd like to but that's not the   
point). You can distribute this freely provided that it's  
complete with this disclaimer.  
  
THE DARK TIMES  
By Jonathan Evans  
  
Obi-Wan walked many miles through the hot sands of Tatooine before  
reaching the nearest moisture farm. The owner, an old figity man  
reminded him of Owen. Owen. The name would have brought a tear  
to his eye if not for the Jedi Code. There is no passion, there is  
serentiy.  
  
Having obtained enough water to keep him alive until he could fix  
his own barely adequaete vaporator, he began the long walk home.  
The wind blew over his face. He pulled a bandage over his face  
but it was no where near enough to stop the stinging pain of  
the sand that whipped his already hardened skin.  
  
A sandstorm was building up quickly. There was no way he would  
make it back to his hut on the jundland wastes. He could just  
give up now and forget it all. He could die and all of the  
troubles that had plagued him would be gone. That, of course,  
was wishful thinking. There is no death, there is the Force.  
  
Ben Kenobi heard a voice behind him. It was full of youth  
and ached for excitement. It sounded so much like... him  
all those years ago. He turned to see a dark haired teenager  
catching up with him in a landspeeder.  
  
The speeder stopped next to him and the boy smiled.  
"Need a lift anywhere, old timer?"  
Ben shook his head. "No thank you, my boy. I should make it."  
"Don't look like it," he replied. "I can give you a lift to  
Mos Eisley if you want. I'm headed there now."  
  
Ben decided to take him up on his offer. Once this storm was   
over he could get home much quicker. Plus he did not want to  
reveal the hut to an outsider. He knew that people considered  
him an old wizard and didn't want the attacks on his tiny  
homestead that had befallen many other strangers on Tatooine.  
  
***  
  
Upon reaching Mos Eisley, the boy went to a hardware store  
for tools to repair the motivator in his speeder's engine.  
Ben looked for a Cantina to spend what it seemed would be a  
long night. It wasn't a difficult thing to find in such a   
wretched hive of scum and villainy.  
  
He walked down a stairwell into the smoke filled den. Ben had  
not seen so many different races since... before the dark times.  
He walked to the bar and ordered a drink. The change he received  
from the water he purchased was barely adequate but enough to  
buy something of strong alcoholic content. And he needed it  
even if his Jedi training all those years ago had forbidden it.  
  
He sat down alone on a table for two. A sip from the cup in front  
of him brought a smile to his lips, aged beyond their years. He  
looked at his reflection in the liquid and saw a man ten years  
older than himself. He was only forty five but the reflection  
made him look almost elderly. He frowned sadly but, realising  
that this brought his wrinkles out more, settled with a more  
neutral expression.  
  
After some time a small alien came up to him. Ben mistook the  
Chadra-Fan for a mere child and shooed it away.  
"Go away," he hissed. "Someone of your age should not be in  
this place."  
"Me could say same thing," the creatured replied in very  
broken basic.  
A quick probe with the Force revealed to ben that his companion  
was in its fifties, much older than any other of its race he  
had met. It jumped onto the seat opposite Ben.  
"Me Frad. Who you?"  
"Call me Ben," he replied.  
"But that not you real calling."  
  
Ben looked to the creature. It... he was extremely wise. Almost  
as much as Yoda, the old human smiled wryly.  
"No, it isn't."  
"What is you real calling?"  
"I'd much rather it if you called me..." Ben sighed. What difference  
would it make? "My name is Ben. I am a Jedi Knight."  
Frad smiled a little. "Ah, Jedi. You kind gone almost, yes?"  
"It is true. We have been hunted down and killed. And it is  
my fault."  
  
The Chadra-Fan put its hands on the table and folded them.  
"You want forget things, right?" Ben nodded affirmatively. Frad  
continued. "That no good.You must talk."  
"About what?" Ben sighed. "About how all this is my fault. About  
how if I had not let Qui-Gon die that things may have been so  
different."  
Frad nodded, talking this all in and trying to work out Ben's almost  
cryptic fashion of talking.  
"And who this Qui-Gon? Important to your?"  
"He was my teacher. All those years ago. He was like a father to me  
when I needed a father and like a brother to me when I needed a brother."  
  
Frad clicked his teeth several times before speaking again.  
"Bad when you lose one like this. I lose one like that."  
"But you can't have made things worse like I did. I promised to  
train a young boy in the ways of the Force but I knew I couldn't  
do it like Qui-Gon."  
"You no put self down. That no good."  
"But I didn't notice when he was tempted by darkness. Fear was  
his weakness and it was exploited by those who knew it all too  
well."  
Frad nodded. "I see what you mean."  
"Do you, though?" Ben muttered. "Have you ever felt that you were  
not the right person to do a job yet everyone's faith in you  
gives you the delusion that you can?"  
"Many time," his companion agreed. Why did he do that all the time?  
Ben knew that his creature could not have understood things the way  
he did yet he was so insistant.  
  
Ben continued his speech. "I was forced to fight the boy when he was a  
man. It took that long before the darkness had corrupted him. *He*  
did it slowly but soon my pupil was pure evil."  
  
"'He?'" Frad asked inquisitivly.  
"Palpatine," Ben said after looking around him in case any of the  
Emperor's sinister agents were in the Cantina. Frad spat onto the  
floor at the sound of the name.  
"He bad," the little creature uttered.  
  
"No one realised how clever he was. He rose to power using the Dark  
Side of the Force yet not even the Council could sense him. He was...  
is the embodiment of the Dark Side. Pure hate."  
The Chadra-Fan spoke again. His tone was that of testing the waters.  
"Not as bad as Vader. Vader pure evil."  
Ben flinched at the name.  
"Know of Vader, eh?"  
"He... he was the boy I failed."  
"Thought as much," Frad nodded. He didn't offer any explanation for  
his unique intuition.  
  
"When Vader... Anakin fell into the molten pit after that battle I  
thought he was dead. I was almost glad, the Force help me. I thought  
I had conquered the Dark Side forever. I thought I had prevented the  
Sith uprising."  
"How wrong you were," Frad noted.  
  
Several spacers entered the Cantina and commented on how the storm was  
calming down. Frad turned to Ben.  
"Walk, will you?"  
Ben nodded. "I think I need some air, my friend. No matter how dry it  
is."  
  
The two left the smoke and entered the main Mos Eisley street. Frad  
stopped walking after some time and looked at Ben with an intense glare.  
"How feel you now you talk over?"  
Ben shrugged the kind of shrug he gave Qui-Gon when asked a similar  
question when he was merely a child. "I guess I feel a bit better," he  
commented.  
  
"It good to talk," Frad smiled. "It get things in the air. Now let me  
tell something..."  
"I would be glad to hear what you have to say," Ben said.  
"I die soon."  
"How soon?" Ben asked. He concern for a creature he had only known for  
a short amount of time surprised him.  
"Soon," Frad said with some weakness present in his voice. Ben hadn't   
noticed it in the noise of the Cantina but realised it had always been  
there. The alien continued. "I hide here when things get bad. I  
coward. Many die by me. All my fault."  
  
"How can you say that?" Ben asked.  
"I was to lead battle. I couldn't face it. I ran here. Many... died."  
"Many Chadra-Fan?"  
"Many Jedi."  
Ben was struck back. How could this little guy say this? How could his  
abandoning a battle cause the death of Jedi? This wasn't possible.  
"Explain," the old Jedi said.  
  
Frad nodded. A group of Jawas shuffled passed so he ushered Ben into the  
shadows of a nearby alleyway. He took a deep breath before continuing.  
"In Clone Wars. Me lead Jedi into battle. My brother die. He only young.  
I not take part in more battle. I scared. I thought me not being there  
would save Jedi. I wrong."  
Ben still could not understand this but he had to offer consolation.  
"I'm sure those Jedi are now with the Force and forgive you."  
"I hope so. I be with them soon. May the Force be with you."  
Frad walked further into the shadows until Ben could no longer see him.  
His voice was heard once more.  
"There is still some good in Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You will see."  
  
Ben ran into the shadows but the alien was no where in sight. A glint  
of light caught the corner of his eye and bent down to see a small  
lightsaber, small enough to fit into the hand of a Chadra-Fan. He  
suddenly realised who he had been speaking to.  
  
During the Clone Wars a battle took place on the seventh planet of the  
Yelloa System. The Jedi and Republic lost due to the disappearance of  
the leader of a strategically important team who were to break through  
to the cloning facilities so the others could destroy it. He became  
known in the Republic as "Grinfrad, Traitor of Yelloa Seven". That's what  
he had been called by those under the influence of Palpatine. It spread  
quickly. The Jedi understood that this may have not been the case but  
it was during the period when their name was getting blackened by the  
soon to be Emperor.  
  
Ben picked up the lightsaber and pressed the button to ignite it. Nothing  
happened. He opened the casing to find a missing focusing crystal. In its  
place was an old holo crystal. Turning it on, Ben saw the picture of two  
young Chadra-Fans, the older in Jedi robes with his arm hung proudly around  
the other. Ben turned it off and walked out of Mos Eisley into the desert.  
  
***  
  
Outside his homestead, Ben buried the lightsaber with the crystal still in  
it. He held his own ignited lightsaber aloft as a sign of respect. He  
would have said "The Force is with you, Jedi Grinfrad. There is no death,  
there is the Force," but the silence seemed more effective. After several  
minutes he entered his hut and put his own weapon away next to that of  
Anakin Sywalker.  
  
"There is some good in him," Frad had told him. Obi-Wan Kenobi honestly  
wanted to believe that was true...  
  
THE END 


End file.
